


Picket Fences

by Geonn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Con Artists, Dirty Talk, F/F, Genderbending, Masturbation, Phone Sex, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tara remembers an old con where she and Sophie became caught up in their own lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picket Fences

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "phone sex"

Between cons, between identities, she's just Tara Cole. It's like a second skin between her and the world, a barrier that keeps her safe just in case. She lives in a common apartment, with common neighbors. They think she's a stewardess or an international businesswoman; her outfits don't give much of a clue either way except for a vague sense of money and taste. Lying in bed after her shower, she stares at her ceiling with no lies to remember, no personal history to manufacture, and only her own memories to keep her company.

She thought of Riverside. A long con five months in the planning with only one hitch... to gain the confidence of the mark, she needed a husband. There were male grifters she knew who could pull it off, but none she trusted enough to bring them in on such a long-term scheme. So she invited Sophie Devereaux out to drinks in Athens. Tara Cole does not go halfway when asking for a favor, especially for a favor as huge as this one.

It would cost Sophie nearly a year of her life, but the payoff would more than make up for it. Sophie was never adverse to long cons for the right price. And she wasn't so precious about her identity that she was turned off by the thought of going by a different name for a prolonged period of time (hell, Sophie wasn't even her true name and she's been wearing that one for a decade). It was losing her gender that made Tara tiptoe around spelling out the con.

Sophie took the evening to consider it. The next morning they met in front of the Parthenon so she could give her answer. She smiled, slipped an exquisite diamond ring onto the third finger of Tara's hand, and flipped her soon-to-be gone hair out of her eyes. She smiled and asked where they would be living.

Stuart and Tara Cole moved to Riverside two weeks later. To an outsider, Tara was fantastically gorgeous and utterly charming. Her husband was a tall and slender man with short dark hair, a dark complexion, and speech impediment that made him reluctant to speak much in mixed company. But he was friendly enough, and when he did speak it was with a tentative accent that many neighbors took as evidence that he was a foreigner. A foreigner from what country, they couldn't begin to say, although everyone had their theories.

Tara closes her eyes as she remembers moving in, the domesticity of it all as she and Sophie chose the furnishings for their new home. It was all a ruse, yes, but it had to be a convincing one. They had to ask themselves who Stuart and Tara were before making a decision on something as innocent as a lamp or a china pattern.

Sophie cut her hair dreadfully short, hands over her face as Tara assaulted the long black curls with hideous silver shears. When she was finished she blew across the back of Sophie's neck, making her quake in the chair before she opened her eyes to look at the misshapen mop now sat atop her head. Once they had determined the length - one step above bald, Sophie declared - Tara began to sculpt it into a masculine style.

She reaches for her cell phone. What time is it where Sophie is? And who can keep track? Los Angeles to Boston to Portland. She stays just long enough to make everyone put their guard down, then whammo. She moves again. Following her merry gang of Robin Hoods. Tara gives up consideration and dials. She rests the phone against her ear and, as it buzzes a ring, she moves her hand under the blankets.

As the phone rings, she thinks about Stuart. They were the perfect couple in public, and perfect partners behind closed doors. Neither of them gave much thought to the deception. They lied to their neighbors, to the clerk at the local grocery store, but who cared? They both knew the neighborhood was full of people doing things just as sordid and secretive behind their own closed curtains. It's why curtains were invented. It was what made Riverside the perfect place for Tara's long con. 

Finding secrets was an easy part. Convincing the owners of the secret to pay for continued silence was the easiest part. The only hard part was keeping their own secrets safe while they ferreted out the secrets of others. They weren't concerned; if there was one thing Tara and Sophie knew better than grifting was how to keep a secret.

"Hello?"

"It's late. Why aren't you home yet? I've been waiting for you all night, Stuart."

It was a gamble. What if it had been too long? What if Sophie didn't remember or wasn't interested? She heard a door close and then Sophie spoke in Stuart's voice. "Sorry, dear. I got caught up at work." Her voice has become a low rumble, a strangely drawl from the American South with hard Rs and a rolling cadence that nevertheless makes Sophie sound like a man. Perhaps a slightly fey man, but nonetheless...

Tara bends her knees and rolls onto her side, the phone between her head and the pillow. She eases up her nightgown. "But I was _waiting_ for you, darling."

"Oh... were you now? Tell me you're not wearing that pink, silky nightgown with the lace that I got you in Milan..."

"No. It's maroon. Dark red. Cut low at the breast and slit high on both sides."

"I bet that doesn't matter. I bet it doesn't matter how high it's cut, because you have it up around your hips, don't you, dear? Don't lie to me, darlin', I can see right through you." 

"Yes."

"Are you touching yourself, Tara?"

"Yes, Stuart."

Tara closes her eyes; it's like Sophie is whispering in her ear again. _"But this is what married couples do, sweetheart."_ She can feel Sophie's hands on her, can feel her weight pressing against the crotch of her panties. She spread her legs, pretending Sophie is there again. Lying on top of her, having come into the master bedroom unbidden and uninvited, showing Tara just how accurate her male costume is by rubbing the tip against Tara's underwear. She moans at the memory.

"Tell me what you're thinking, sweetheart."

"You." She worries her lip and groans, lips spreading in a primal smile of arousal. "Your cock."

Sophie chuckles and, for that moment, it's Sophie again. "It's thinking about you, too. It's gotten hard, Tara, and I'm gonna have to start stroking it right here. Oh, the things you do to me."

She thinks about how easy their public affection had been. Holding hands when it wasn't entirely necessary, shopping together. She remembers the tension in her spine the first time 'Stuart' kissed her, and how quickly it had become natural. How surprised she had been to have Sophie in her bed while, at the same time, how it seemed to have taken forever to happen. After that first night, they decided it was ridiculous to keep separate rooms. Sharing a bed would also help their ruse. And, damn it, Tara just wanted Sophie to keep fucking her.

"Are you stroking it?" Tara asks breathlessly. "Your big cock?"

"Yes. Tell me what you're doing."

"Touching myself."

"Both hands?"

Tara grunts. "Yes..."

"Use the fingers of your left hand. I want your right hand on your breast." Tara does as she's told. She can hear Sophie's heavy breathing over the phone. "I want you," Sophie whispers in her own voice, and it's almost as if they're having a threesome. 

"Want you too," Tara murmurs, her lips inches from the speaker. She knows her breath is passing over the speaker, knows it must be loud in Sophie's ear, but she doesn't care. "Need you, Soph."

"And just who is Sophie?"

"You. It was always you, Sophie, on top of me... uhm... in me. Fucking me with your cock, it was Sophie, Sophie Devereaux, Katherine, Annie, Charlotte, Stuart." She says the sacred name, the one the woman she's speaking to was born with. She draws a breath and then sighs, "Sophie. I'm so close, Sophie."

"I can picture your face," Sophie sighs, giving up the male voice. Now her voice is sex, smooth, silk, British seduction and hypnotism. "I love that I know what you look like right now, on the edge, forcing yourself to hold... back... but I want you to let go. Tara, I want you to let go right now and I want you to come for me. I'm your lover, I'm your husband, and I'm the closest thing you have to a partner, and I am telling you to come."

Tara does as she is told, thrusting against her hand as she remembers Sophie against her back, hands on her hips, thrusting the cock into her. Both of them gasping, knowing that the same thought ( _We fell victim to the con_ ) is passing through Sophie's head as they come together. And now, in the present, Sophie listens as Tara makes herself come thousands of miles away. She can hear the tremulous nature of Sophie's breathing and knows she's come, too, and Tara wets her lips before she lifts her head and puts the phone to her ear.

"Not bad for an improv, Mr. Cole."

"Hm, perhaps I've rehearsed it in my head a few times before." Sophie now sounds sleepy, and Tara hears blankets shifting. She smiles, glad they're both in bed.

"You should have called."

"I know that now. Didn't want to intrude. Didn't know if you remembered."

"I remembered," Tara says. Her heart had seized a little on the day she took off 'Stuart Cole's' wedding ring at the end of the grift. 

Sophie doesn't speak again; Stuart does. "I feel like we're drifting apart, darling."

"After what we just did?"

"Separated by an ocean or a continent, whichever... I miss you. I haven't seen you in ages. You'd be amazed how long I've grown out my hair."

Tara chuckles. "Maybe we could take a holiday."

"Mm. I'd like that. Just you, me. That nightie. My cock."

"A match made in heaven."

"Yes." She's a little confused by how excited she is at the prospect, but only a little. She knows how her body reacts to Sophie Devereaux. It's not about being a lesbian or bisexual. It's about falling for the con. She was bulletproof before she met the smooth-talking, divine, debonair when necessary, sultry Sophie. 

They made their promises to talk again later before hanging up, and Tara curls under the blankets. She doesn't want a normal life. She doesn't want neighbors who actually know who she is, white picket fences and the dog in the yard. 

But when it comes to Sophie, a little domesticity isn't the worst thing in the world.


End file.
